


looking straight at me for an answer

by angryjane



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, Depressed Simon Snow, Gen, How Do I Tag, I'm Sorry, LMAO, Light Angst, POV Penelope Bunce, Penelope Bunce is a Good Friend, Post-Book 2: Wayward Son, Post-Canon, Pre-Book 2: Wayward Son, Rehashing the Events of Carry On more like, Spoilers for Book 2: Wayward Son, This Is STUPID, Trauma, but not like, discussion of trauma, i dont even LIKE angst lmao, idk - Freeform, in a bad way???, me too, only shepard's existence, shepard is cinfused, there's not a lot fo spoilers for wayward son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 15:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21017873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angryjane/pseuds/angryjane
Summary: Let's play twenty questions....[to be rewritten in the future]





	looking straight at me for an answer

**Author's Note:**

> this is a shitty fic, i'm aware. i just felt the need to do it. bc wayward son hurted, and i was still reeling from carry on. so here, take this.  
(( you know in antman where luis does his rehash of the events?? i was inspired by that except make it sad also it's penny talking bc this shit affected her too))

**PENNY**

“Let’s play a game.” 

Simon and Baz are two rows up from the Normal and I; Baz is asleep on Si’s shoulder, and he’s running his fingers through Baz’s hair softly. Disgusting. I smile.

“No,” I tell Shepard, “Let’s not.”

“Let’s play twenty questions.” The Normal amends, grinning at me. I still don’t like him. 

“Here’s a question: why are you so annoying?”

“Side effect of being friendly. My turn,” He gives me a look like he’s won, “Why are you so grouchy?”

I glare. “Hm, well I just took a terribly-planned road trip across America, fought vampires,  _ twice _ , lost my magic multiple times, saved my friend from a cult, and now an obnoxious Normal is nagging me with questions. I don’t know, why am I grouchy, Shepard?”

He rolls his eyes; the audacity. “I mean you seem like you’ve survived worse.” He’s right and I hate him. “Besides, I’m only here because  _ you _ insisted.” He’s right again. It didn’t take much convincing to get him to come with us, though: all I had to say was that he’d get to visit a magickal institution and he was in. (Never mind that I forgot to mention he won’t be able to get in; Watford’s gate don’t open for Normals.)

“Your turn.” 

Huffing, I lean back in my seat. “Why are you so insistent on learning about the magickal world? Last I checked, you had a wholeass world of your own.”

He shrugs and I think of Simon. “Yours is cooler. You can fly.”

“We can’t  _ fly _ , the spellwork is illegal-”

“He can.” He’s gesturing towards Simon, and I almost flinch. 

“Special case.”I try to be dismissive, to channel Baz’s demeanor, because I don’t want to talk about this. Not with the Normal, and not without SImon’s permission. I feel like it’s not my story to tell. It’si _ his _ . It’s been a story about him, not me.

Shepard raises his eyebrows. He’s not very good at it; better than Simon but I’ve seen it on Baz so I know it’s not good. I want to laugh.

“What… what  _ is _ he?” 

“He’s a person,” I snap. I can’t help it. 

“I know that. I mean… Is he a mage? I haven’t seen him so any spellwork, just fly around and fight things.” I snort. “Not that that wasn’t helpful,” He backtracks, “But you know me-”

“I really don’t.”

“-I’m just curious. What’s the scoop?”

I blink at him. Is this how Simon feels when he doesn’t get things? 

“I’ve never heard that phrase. What does it mean?” Part of me wants to write it down, for research purposes. But I don’t have a notebook on hand; I curl my fingers into my skirt to refrain from writing it in the air with my stone.

“It means, like… What’s the story there? The ‘inside scoop.’ It comes from the news industry, I think.” Another shrug. No wonder he and Simon get along. (Besides the shrugging I see a lot of Simon in Shepard. I don’t like it.)

“There’s no scoop.” He tries the eyebrow thing again. “It’s not my scoop to scoop.”

“One, that’s not how you say it, and two I don’t believe you.”

I give him my best glare. I kind of wish Shepard had chosen to have this conversation with Baz instead. It’s just  _ not my story. _

Except… maybe there is a tiny part of me that wants to talk. 

I look at Shepard’s eager face. He’s leaning in a little, and there’s dried toothpaste on his cheek. I don’t tell him it’s there, because I can be a bitch sometimes. Baz says it’s what he likes about me. If I’m being honest, it’s what I like about him too.

“What do you know about prophecies?” I say abruptly, and Shepard glares.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not.”

His eyes narrow behind his stupid glasses. “I know they’re often not true, except this one book by this crazy lady, and she predicted the apocalypse or something, but it didn’t happen, and everything else she said is true but that, so are they even trustworthy anyway? And she-”

“I don’t need the history of prophecies. I took that class already, Normal; I know who Agnes Nutter is.” I hiss. “What else do you know? Do you know the important one?”

“I just said, the one about he apocalypse-”

“Which she also predicted was not going to come to pass. I mean the real one.”

“...The real one?” He pauses, and I can see the gears turning in his head. “The one about 2012?”

“No, that one’s bollocks.”

“The one about the Queen?”

“No, that’s centuries off. We’ll all be dead by then.”

He blinks, wracking his mind. I can almost feel it when the realization lights up his eyes. “You don’t mean…” He lowers his voice conspiratorially, “‘ _ And one will come to end him, and one will bring his fall’...  _ The Chosen One?”

“That’s the one.” He’s like a cartoon character, eyes wide and mouth open. I want to laugh.

“...What about it?”

Merlin, how thick his he? 

I take a different tack. “There was a boy. He wasn't the brightest in his classes, but he was very pure, and cared about everything. He was funny, too.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with-”

“Do you want to know, or not?”

He shuts up, sitting back in his seat. His hands are folded across his lap, and I pick at my fingernails nervously as I go on, “He was a mess. His name was Simon, and he and I became friends in the first day of classes, in our first year. We were eleven, and I felt sorry for him. Also, my mother told me to stay away from him, so I didn’t.” Shepard snorts.

“He had a roommate, as we all do at Watford. Baz.” I flick my hand over towards where they’re sitting, now whispering about something, heads bent together. 

“They hated each other. Baz was rich, posh, and probably a vampire-”

“Definitely a vampire.” Shepard interrupts. 

“Yeah, we know that  _ now, _ but we didn’t then. Simon was convinced, though no one listened. As I was saying, they hated each other. Baz was a jerk, and Simon had a destiny. The Mage-- he used to be the leader of Britain’s magickal world-”

“What happened to him? What do you mean ‘used to’?”

“Shut up, I’m getting there.” I huff. “The Mage was like a father to Simon. Simon grew up in the system, you see. Until he was eleven, when he lit the home he was in on fire. In his sleep.”

It’s kind of satisfying, the way Shepard blanches. 

“The Mage came and whisked Simon off to Watford. Saying Simon was the most powerful mage the world had ever seen. And he  _ was. _ The Chosen One, for real.”

For once, Shepard stays quiet. 

“And then, at the end of last year… it all came to a head. The enemy we’d been fighting, the Insidious Humdrum… well, it was Simon. He was the Humdrum. Or, the Humdrum was him. What he left behind, using all that magic. 

“So he gave it up. The Humdrum was a hole, and Simon filled it.”

My throat is closing up, and I grab at the Normal’s water bottle,taking a swig. He doesn't protest, just watches, dumbfounded. 

“No one loved magic like he did… like he does. I can see it, when Baz or I use magic. The sadness. He misses it, even though eh won’t say so. And I-” I swallow, take a breath. “It hurts to see him like that.”

Shepard’s making a thinking face. “So what happened to the Mage guy?”

“That’s the worst part. He basically engineered Simon, like a lab rat. And then pushed him and used him, but he was still the only father figure Simon had. And then SImon had to kill him.”

Shepard looks like a deer in the headlights. “That’s effed up.” He breathes. I grimace, but nod.

“It is. It- It really is. And I can’t even do anything to fix it.”

We’re quiet. I don’t know what he’s thinking.

“What about the wings?” He says at last, and I roll my eyes. 

“Of course that’s what you’re focused on.” He puts his hands up in mock surrender, but I push on, “He thought about getting away from somewhere, and they just grew. The tail too; I think he was imagining the dragon he killed first year. And when he lost his magic, they stayed. They won’t come off; he’s thinking about surgery.”  _ Or he was. _ He hasn’t mentioned it in months. (Besides, you can’t get surgery on a beaten-up sofa.)

“He killed a dragon?”

“On accident.”

“Wh- I- Oh my-” He stutters, flopping back against the cheap seats. “That really sucks. And it…” He looks over at me. “It must suck to have to see all this happen, and not be able to help. I’m sorry.”

I don’t know what to say. “What are you sorry for?”

Shepard shrugs. “That you had to watch.”

I don’t say anything. I nod, and the rest of the trip passes in silence.

**Author's Note:**

> [join the discord!!](https://discord.gg/eAetgQg) no seriously, please do. we need to talk. please. pretty please.  
[find me on instagram?](https://www.instagram.com/snowbaz_twitter_au/)  
[or tumblr](https://angryjane.tumblr.com/)  
or just shout out ur window i'll hear u


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